The Armana Mummy
dates unknown (18th Dynasty)
No mummy has proved as controversial as the remains found in tomb KV55 by Theodore Davis in 1907. The situation hasn't been helped by the 'excavation' of the tomb, which was (to be fair) a disaster.
In this small, hastily-assembled tomb a mummy was laying in a coffin from which the names had been erased, wrapped in gold bands (that were stolen shortly afterwards and never recovered) that displayed the name of Akhenaten.
Davis virtually immediately took the mummy outside the tomb, grabbed a passing doctor and claimed to have found the body of Queen Tiye (wife of Amenhotep III and mother of Akhenaten).
The remains (Davis had succeeded in reducing it to a disarticulated skeleton) were sent to Grafton Elliot Smith in Cairo, who wrote back 'are you sure the bones you sent me were those that were found in the tomb?' Smith had expected the bones of an old woman. He was sent what he took to be the remains of a young man.
Smith was convinced the remains were those of Akhenaten's, although he found it difficult to age the mummy at more than 30. In fact, most of the evidence indicated that this individual had been around 25 years old at the time of death.
Smith thought the skull exhibited signs of hydrocephalus, although he admitted that parts of the skull had been mislaid in transport.
Over the years, despite the fact that of all the names found in and around KV55 his is conspicuously absent, scholars have generally (and grudgingly) concluded that the remains must be those of Smenkhkare, the supposed successor of Akhenaten.
However, a new examination of research done on the skull in 1978 raises the possibility that the body may actually have be that of a woman - and if it is, the weight of the evidence favours it being the mummy of Tutankhamen's mother Kiya.
DNA research (which is still possible) would resolve the issue - although if the body in KV55 does turn out to be male after all, its identity remains a mystery.